The Ducote Family: We're really doing this!

Ever since the day we moved into our home on Botero Drive, Rich has been wanting to move out (I'm only half joking about this). Long story short, we discovered about a week prior to closing on the home that there had been a parking issue in the neighborhood that affected our home. The home was on what we thought to be a quiet cul de sac; however, due to condos, across the street outside of our development, not having enough parking for their residents our street became the overflow and guest parking for those who lived there. That also meant a constant stream of cars pulling into our cul de sac looking for parking spots regularly. Like I said, we discovered this prior to closing and after Rich interviewed our potential neighbors about the issue but also threatened to pull out of the contract, we ultimately opted to go through with it but it has been a major sore spot especially for him since day 1. It bothered me but there were things about the house which I loved (the pool, the neighbors, solar and just the fact that were were able to get into a home at that time in the market in an area that we wanted) so I was willing to deal with it. Throughout the past 3 years we'd go back and forth and back and forth about what to do-in April I was interviewing contractors to remodel our kitchen and then by June we had totally scratched that and were ready to move. So in June we started casually looking for homes-we were looking in a few different parts of San Diego, but nothing really felt right. At the beginning of July we went to look at a home about 5 miles from us which Rich really liked. He convinced me to put an offer on it but I was having trouble sleeping thinking about it and it just didn't seem like "the one", so we ended up backing out of our offer. Then, on our anniversary we went to view a home that was less than 2 miles from the current one that sparked our interest. Rich fell in love immediately, but it took me a little bit more convincing. It didn't have a pool, nor was it on a cul de sac and I didn't love the downstairs floor plan...but, it did have an amazing view, which seemed to make up for all of that, especially after discussing that we could put a pool in and that it was adjacent to a cul de sac so that made it better. We put an offer in that afternoon and figured that if it was meant to be it would work out, especially since it was on our anniversary and all! Well, we heard back by Monday that it was accepted so we were on our way, although we still had to sell our house!!! We had actually taken pictures of our home earlier that month "just in case" so we had those ready and our realtor worked fast to have everything up and ready to go by Friday. On Thursday afternoon I received a text from our neighbor, Rosy, who told me that they had good family friends who were interested in looking at the house so on Thursday before dinner they came over to check it out and by Friday afternoon, before it had even officially gone on the market, we had an offer!! The only thing was that their offer was also contingent on selling their home. So, for the next month it was pretty nerve wracking as we were waiting for their home to sell but unfortunately they weren't having much luck (so we continued to show our home just in case if theirs couldn't sell but we didn't receive any other offers either.) After a month of open houses and even lowering their asking price, they decided that they couldn't go any lower so had to back out. We got this news on a Wednesday night and we were bummed and decided that we'd put it back on the market for one more week and then take it off, and just chalk it up to the timing wasn't right. I didn't want to continue to keep it on the market any longer because the showings were exhausting as it was, but even more so exhausting now that school was back in session. On Thursday morning we received notice from our realtor that there were 2 new families interested in our home so showed our home Thursday and Friday afternoon and by Friday night we had 2 new offers. Crazy. So, with all that being said, we accepted an offer that allowed us to stay in the home until November 1st since we couldn't move into the new home until then and that wasn't contingent on anything so it was pretty much a go! It was nice to have the 2 months before the actual move to be able to go through things and get organized before packing and I feel like it made the transition easier. I won't lie though, even though we only moved less than 2miles down the road, it was hard. The Vuong and Reppas family especially have become like family to us, and it is just the perfect combination of kids. I'm not kidding when I say that almost every.single.afternoon they are outside playing in the cul de sac from 3:45 to 5:30. They all get along great and it is just so easy for me, too. However, for the long run we know that this will be a good move and we know that we will still see both families often so we are excited. The kids have been amazing throughout this entire process. Honestly they didn't complain at all about the open houses or showings and have taken things in stride. The last few weeks they have been asking more questions and have stated that they don't want to move because of the neighbors but we've just been reiterating what we've been telling ourselves about them being friends and that we will still see them often. Julia keeps saying, "I'm a little bit happy but I'm a little bit sad. I'm happy to move into our new home but I'm sad to leave our neighbors." Sums it up pretty well. Bittersweet but excited.

Here are the realtor pictures from our old home and then from our new home...can't believe this is really happening!! It seems like such a long time coming.